Many of my contemporaries agree that growing up, eating at a neighbour’s house was an offence. Depending on the kind of mother you had, you could end up with a spanking or an unforgettable scolding, the kind that would melt your appetite for someone else’s food for the rest of your life.
That childhood rule came to mind when a friend told me about her neighbour’s habit of repeatedly asking her for food. Without that rule growing up, I might have turned out to be the neighbour my friend was complaining about, borrowing food from others whenever I was too lazy to cook after work.
“I need to learn just the right level of ‘wickedness’ from you. Can you believe my neighbour knocked on my door to borrow food!” my friend said in frustration. My friend is cordial and greets both friends and strangers joyfully. It totally made sense that a neighbour knocked at her door to ask for food just two months after she moved into the teacher’s quarters of her school.
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Whenever she is doing heavy cooking, her neighbour can tell because she will be using the charcoal stove on the common veranda to roast or boil some things. My friend said the first time this neighbour asked her to share some food with her, she decided not to read too much into it. It was after the second and the third time that my friend snapped!
She told her the food was not ready. She had hoped that was enough to push her away. But the neighbour came back later. This time, my friend told her outright that she had packed all her food in the freezer and did not have any to give her.
I asked my friend whether there were signs that the woman was struggling financially, which could explain the habit. She said she had not noticed anything that suggested the woman was in need. They crossed paths at school, where the neighbour always appeared well dressed and well groomed. From my friend’s perspective, there was little to suggest that she was struggling to meet her everyday needs.
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My friend and I could not decide whether the woman’s behaviour stemmed from financial need, which my friend considered unlikely, or a disregard for social boundaries. We reasoned that even if the neighbour genuinely admired my friend’s cooking, she could have waited until they had built a closer relationship before repeatedly asking for food.
I called my father to understand why borrowing food or eating at a neighbour’s house is frowned upon. He told me many parents warned their children against eating at other people’s houses because when a child gets into the habit of eating at the neighbour’s place, the picture they paint is that of parents who cannot take care of their own children.
The second reason was that somehow, the neighbours will talk behind your back and give you names, particularly if you regularly ate at their house. Thirdly, he said the habit can make you stop appreciating the food in your own home. It can introduce comparison because if you eat chicken at your neighbour’s home on the day your parents have prepared ugali and sukuma wiki, as a child you can begin to think that they are better than their own parents because you will forget that you eat chicken in your home too. This lesson on comparison spilled over to other areas of life too.
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After speaking to my father, I began to appreciate the discipline behind the strict instruction not to eat at a neighbour’s house. Beyond the concerns about what people might say, there was a lesson about contentment. It was about learning to appreciate what you have without constantly comparing it with what others have. Perhaps that lesson extended beyond food to other areas of life, teaching us to be grateful for what we have while respecting other people’s boundaries.
Looking back, I wonder whether the rule was really about food or about the values our parents hoped to instil in us. I am still waiting for an update from my friend on whether her neighbour has stopped asking for food. But our conversation has left me thinking about the lessons hidden in some of the rules we grew up with, and how much of what our parents taught us was about preparing us to live well with others.
The writer is the Research & Impact Editor, NMG ([email protected]).